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Policy at Correctional Services Canada may be failing to limit the spread of hepatitis C in prisons.
Correctional Service of Canada (CSC) could face a funding shortfall of up to $100 million if it adheres to a new standard of care that would see federal inmates infected with hepatitis C prescribed a new and expensive drug.
Internal government reports, released to CMAJ under the federal access to information law and reviewed by four external experts, appear to indicate that CSC may be delaying treatment for as many as 1750 infected federal inmates. CSC recently released the heavily censored reports to CMAJ, almost ten months past the deadline stipulated under the federal information law.
The funding shortfall is underpinned both by CSC’s standard-of-care requirement to use the costly new drugs and a dramatic expansion in the number of inmates potentially treatable with these new drugs, which are better tolerated and more efficacious than the drugs CSC previously used.
“Restrictions on treatment according to disease stage are no longer tenable for many people living with chronic hep C,” says Betteridge. “CSC should get moving and develop an implementation plan to provide the highest standard of care to all prisoners rather than engaging in cost-containment planning and arbitrary rationing of treatment driven by untenably small budgets.”